The treatment of insect infestation and fungus growth in crop plants and horticulture represents a considerable cost and creates a series of undesired consequences. Insecticide and fungicide compounds currently in use have a degree of toxicity as well as producing residues that accumulate in soil and runoff therefrom. These residues also impact localized ecology and often are injurious to beneficial insects and/or soil dwelling organisms. Representative of the active insecticide and fungicide compounds that have been employed are halogenated synthetic compounds, heterocyclic synthetic organic compounds, and inorganic copper compounds.
An older active compound that is again finding favor because of the aforementioned problems associated with synthetic organic materials and inorganic copper compounds is elemental sulfur. Elemental sulfur while having antifungal properties has limited activity against insects while having unattractive delivery properties as a powder or slurry that make it difficult to adhere to nonhorizontal vegetation surfaces. To overcome such problems vegetable oil has been added to spray formulations and through mechanical mixing forms an emulsion with adhesion advantages to plant surfaces while also imparting a lipophilic character to the composition that is able to wet the waxy cuticle associated with a leaf surface. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2005/0129662 is exemplary thereof.
Unfortunately, such vegetable oil emulsions that contain an active agent tend to phase segregate and have limited properties to penetrate waxy surface coatings associated with a variety of funguses and insect cuticles.
Thus, there exists a need for a composition of low toxicity that is amenable to effectively treat fungal and insect infestations of plants.